The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court, issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
FCC
The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau denied petitions filed by several inmate calling service providers seeking additional time to respond to the FCC’s one-time mandatory data request. Accordingly, responses are still due by August 18, 2014. The FCC said that the providers had merely repeated the same arguments that made when they initially (and successfully) sought an extension of time to file the data See the Regulatory Mix dated 7/14/14 and had not justified the need for a further extension of time. The FCC said that providers have had ample notice about the data collection and that a further extension would simply cause undue delay in the proceeding.
Oklahoma
The OCC is seeking comment on proposed changes to its Chapters 55 (Telecommunications Services) and 59 (Oklahoma Universal Service Fund (OUSF)) rules. Among other things, the Chapter 55 revisions would revise the documentation to be filed with certain tariff revisions, clarify record retention and reporting requirements for Eligible Telecommunications Carriers (ETCs), and revise the notification requirements associated with mobile marketing events held by Lifeline providers. The Chapter 59 revisions contain similar ETC provisions and also clarify what constitutes billed Oklahoma intrastate revenues. Comments on both sets of proposed changes may be submitted by August 25, 2014, October 7, 2014, October 27, 2014, and November 25, 2014. Four technical conferences will be held on August 12, 2014, September 25, 2014, October 22, 2014, and November 13, 2014. The Commission will consider the permanent adoption of the proposed rules at a public hearing on January 29, 2015. TMI Regulatory Bulleting subscribers see Bulletin dated 8/12/14.
Utah
The PSC adopted new Lifeline rules effective August 6, 2014. The revisions are intended to reflect changes made to the federal Lifeline program in 2011. The rules include eligibility requirements, record keeping, reporting, and the duties of the state program administrator. The PSC said that it received “helpful” comments from various parties on the rules after their publication and will be incorporating those changes in a new proposed rule amendment to be published shortly. TMI Regulatory Bulletin subscribers see Bulletin dated 8/11/14.